Kim Yo Jong, Department Director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, issued the following position on the 19th in connection with major international issues aggravating the global security crisis.

The current trend of the international situation, which is further accentuating unpredictability and complexity, is amplifying geopolitical crises in various parts of the world and arousing serious concern in the international community desirous of peace and stability.

In the Middle East, which can be regarded as a barometer representing the world's conflicts and chaos, the vicious cycle of confrontation continues, thereby deepening the rift of distrust and discord among regional countries, causing ceaseless bloodshed, and heightening unprecedented political and economic instability in the international arena.

In Europe, the reckless confrontational scheme of the Western group to impose a strategic defeat on Russia by using Ukraine as a proxy war executor has brought the protracted armed conflict to a more serious stage.

In the Korean Peninsula region as well, which has been the world's largest hotspot for a century, the regional security environment is constantly facing challenges due to the geopolitical expansion attempts and excessive arms buildup of the US and its vassal forces.

From the Middle East and Europe to the Asia-Pacific region including the Korean Peninsula, the current situation of the global village, where the vicious cycle of tension has been permanently entrenched due to the high-handedness and abuse of force by hegemonic powers, demands that each country clarify its principled position more explicitly in pursuing justice and fairness and defending the security and interests of the state.

Our view and position remain unchanged that the security threats of the US and the West, which have systematically increased against Russia since the end of the Cold War, are the basic factor that has brought about the current Ukraine crisis.

A better future for Europe cannot be shaped irrespective of the core interests and will of the Russian Federation.

We regard that only the way of removing the root cause of the conflict can serve as a fundamental solution to end the Ukraine crisis and ensure sustainable and lasting peace in the region, and we fully support and endorse the just actions of the Russian government and people to defend the sovereignty, security interests and territorial integrity of the country.

On this occasion, we make it clear that the so-called “additional troop dispatch” rumour about our army, fabricated and spread by the Zelensky clique, is a groundless self-made farce of Kiev, and that the responsibility for the outbreak and protraction of the Ukraine situation lies entirely with the US and the West, which have prepared the prerequisites and fostered the conditions for it.

All cooperation between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation thoroughly conforms to the treaty on the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two sides, which corresponds to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and is a legitimate sphere of exercising sovereign rights.

In line with the allied nature of the DPRK-Russia interstate treaty, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea always maintains its focus on its obligations as an allied treaty state and is boundlessly responsible.

We are seriously watching the reckless military expansion attempts of Japan, a dangerous factor that causes an imbalance of power in the Asia-Pacific region including the Korean Peninsula, as a potential and prospective threat.

The fact that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea takes the remilitarization threat of Japan seriously should be understood as meaning that its attention towards Japan—that is, its perception of regarding them as military targets—has grown accordingly, and this indicates that Japan's security has been put in a more dangerous situation.

Our military leadership has already begun to consider deterring, suppressing or even going beyond the Japanese threat, which is developing into a serious security challenge, as part of its military strategy.

In other words, if Japan dares to attempt a wrong choice, it will now directly face an immediate and non-survivable annihilating onslaught.

Japan's military evolution is a self-destructive act, like carrying straw and jumping into fire.

We will always maintain the fundamental approach of eliminating danger from the position of strength and ensuring genuine peace and stability, based on the unchanging reality that the greatest threat to the security interests of the state and the regional security environment comes from the US.

As for the sudden announcement by the US President several days ago about the reduction of the US-ROK joint military exercises, we consider it not worth commenting on and are not interested in it at all.

A reduction in the scale or duration of the exercises does not change the nature of the provocative and offensive military exercises.

In this year alone, the US and the Republic of Korea have continuously conducted all sorts of joint military exercises in different airspaces and territories without any temporal or spatial gap, including the combined air exercise “Ssangmae” in February, the combined small-unit exercise and the large-scale joint military exercise “Freedom Shield” in March, the US-ROK naval combined rescue exercise and combined mine warfare exercise and the large-scale combined air exercise “Freedom Flag” in April, the combined air force tactical exercise “Hercules Guardians” in May, and the combined logistics support exercise and the combined air exercise “Ssangmae” in July.

This means that the exercise course which has been reduced this time has already been more than sufficiently substituted by the joint exercises conducted previously.

Nevertheless, the Republic of Korea has exposed its hostile identity without any disguise by insisting that this war exercise is a defensive military exercise simulating an attack by no one and by talking about strengthening the “ironclad US-ROK alliance” and accelerating the introduction of nuclear submarines.

We are paying more attention not to the reduction or shortening of individual exercises, but to the reality that the US-ROK joint military exercises have been continuously conducted to this day and are still underway, and we accurately see through the fact that this is an undisguisable expression of the clear hostile sentiment towards the DPRK.

If the US side calculates to propagandize the measures it has taken this time as some kind of “goodwill measure”, it will not get the desired answer.

As for the recent Washington-sourced news that there was communication between the leaders of the DPRK and the US, I do not know about it at all, and it is probably the only issue concerning our supreme leadership's foreign policy that I am not aware of.

It has already been revealed several times that our head of state personally has good memories and feelings towards Trump.

The relations between the two leaders remain excellent.

This is known to the whole world and I consider it not particularly surprising.

Nevertheless, the US's hostile policy towards the DPRK has not changed, and the US and its vassal forces are fiercely carrying out hostile military activities against the DPRK even at this very moment.

Likewise, we are reminded that, irrespective of the excellent relations between the leaders of the two countries, the sovereign actions we take to check the forces threatening the security of our state are very commonsensical, pertinent and indispensable.

History and reality prove that when the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has a stronger deterrent, the security structure of the region becomes more balanced and stabilized.